


To Distract and Sedate

by awkwardCerberus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adam get some help, Alcohol, Cigarettes, DONT DO DRUGS KIDDOS, God why are you reading this, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Just skip it, M/M, This is one big internal guilt trip, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, i rose up from the dead to write this, like this is not nice, maybe a lil too self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 18:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15419022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardCerberus/pseuds/awkwardCerberus
Summary: He saw the news that evening and he thought, “maybe if I’d tried a little harder”.





	To Distract and Sedate

**Author's Note:**

> IM NOT DEAD WTF. No seriously I haven’t published anything in over a year and i legit feel like shit for it. I have some long WIPs that im trekking to write but ive been so busy with work and college shit and even when i have time to write its,,,, not fast. 
> 
> BUT HOLY SHIT YALL SHIROS GAY AND HE HAS A FIANCÉ I COULDNT PASS THAT UP. im ??? Blessed truly. But more importantly, yall know my love of dark angsty shit, so this tiny lil thing is the brain child of me binge watching sons of anarchy in a week and me wondering how bad Adam feels knowing that probably the last thing he and shiro (HE CALLS HIM TAKASHI IM W E A K) was their fight. So yeah i threw this ting to get here in like 3 hours sue me its t i ny and cringey. This is literally just me wanting to see how awful i can write someone we know nothing about
> 
> Title is from Sedated by Hozier my man

What the fuck was Adam even thinking? Saying he wouldn’t be there for Takashi when he got back, he didn’t mean that and he knew it. He would always be there for him. It’s why he always made sure to go up into space with Takashi. It’s why he stayed when he found about about Takashi’s condition, despite the other insisting that Adam leave before he was stuck at home nursing a bedridden husband in his thirties. 

But he was mad, dammit. He was mad because they’d had this conversation every time they came back from space. Even after the short missions on the orbital stations, and especially after their longer trips. Especially then. He was mad that every time they came back, they had to skip out on the parties because Takashi was usually rushed into the infirmary to be poked and prodded and kept over the weekend (Adam didn’t care, he hated parties anyway, he just wanted his fiancé to be okay). He was mad at those occasional nights where he rolled over in bed and Takashi was a sobbing, heaving ball because every muscle in him was tensed up so tightly it was trying to tear itself apart. He was mad that he was the only one in that relationship who was trying to think of the long term—

—and yes, Takashi, we will start this again, because your “long term” only goes as far as the next mission. _I’m_ the one who’s thinking about five years from now when you wake up one morning and can’t move your legs!—

I won’t be here when you get back. 

Christ. He was horrible.

He doesn’t remember much after that, he was still so upset.

He remembers seeing Keith running out towards the garage with a vengeance in his eyes. He remembers Takashi coming back to their apartment to pack a bag because, “no, you need some time. I get it, Adam, I do. I’ll sleep on Matt’s couch. For a couple days”. He remembers standing in the back of the room when they announced the final crew for the Kerberos mission, and Takashi’s name being right on top. And he rememebers the launch date being pushed way ahead of scheduale to two weeks. 

After that, nothing.

He couldn’t even give him a kiss goodbye, like an asshole. He stood on the launchpad, watching Commander Holt and his son and Takashi walking up the catwalk to the cockpit, everyone waving and cheering and the news crews talking excitedly to their cameras. Takashi blew him a kiss and a sad smile but Adam felt sick. He should be on that catwalk with Takashi but he isn’t. He, the one who knows all the dosages of Takashi’s medications and when he needs to take them, and what to do if he has another seizure or if some limb decides to just stop working, he who took the 12-hour class specifically on how to take care of his fiancé should anything happen, is not on that catwalk. Because he was to petty to be. So he turns and walks back inside.

What does that say about him. He didn’t want to get hurt, or he was being selfish? He had been selfish. He just didn’t want to get hurt again, but he wasn’t thinking about how that probably made Takashi feel. And he was going into space like that. Adam may as well have literally stabbed him in the back. 

The Kerberos mission was set to be a year and five months. 

Adam hoped that by the time Takashi got back, he would be ready to apologize to him.

 

 

“The Galaxy Garrison mission to the distant moon of Kerberos is missing, and all crew members are believed to be dead. The Galaxy Garrison has said that the cause was presumably a pilot error. It is indeed a sad day for all of humanity.”

He saw it and he didn’t believe it. Pilot error. Takashi didn’t make pilot errors. They weren’t dead. This was a lie.

 

 

It wasn’t a lie. It was the truth. A truth that god Adam a there week suspension from duty for storming into the secure control room, putting his fist through a six-thousand dollar computer screen, and grabbing Commander Iverson by the collar. It should have been a serious probationary issue, Admiral Sonda told him in the infirmary while she watched a nurse pull parts of that screen from his knuckles. But he was grieving, she reminded him, and that he should take some time to himself.

He didn’t wan’t time to himself. He wanted his fiancé back.

And three weeks was a long time to be by one’s self. 

 

 

The Garrison was at least a twenty minute drive from anywhere, but there was a microscopic little gas station between there and the nearest town. But it had a convenience store, one that sold cheap alcohol and cheaper cigarettes. Not that Adam smoked or drank, but tonight was a special occasion. The clerk gave him a weary look at the rather large bottles of alcohol he set down on the counter—labels he hadn’t really checked; they were under the sign that read “hard liquor” and “3 for $10!”. He told the clerk to surprise him with he cigarette and got two packs of something green. 

To his credit, he waited until he was back in the apartment to get wasted. The first drink burned his throat all the way down. After that, he couldn’t feel anything. He found a lighter in the junk drawer at the end of the counter and tried his first cigarette. It was as bad as his middle school health teacher had told him it would be, and the menthol in them made them gag. But after a few minutes, it wasn’t awful.

Ten minutes, half a bottle of...maybe bourbon?...and two cigarettes later, Adam was on the floor in the kitchen holding their engagement photo. It was well past sunset, but there was enough outside lighting from the Garrison compound coming through the windows that he could still see it well enough.

That was two years ago. June. Right after their second deep space mission together. They were visiting Adam’s family in Queens, he’d taken Takashi out onto the back porch where everyoen could see, and got down on one knee and asked. Takashi stared at him like a deer in the headlights for a good ten seconds before he hauled Adam off the ground in the biggest kiss ever. Yes, yes, God Adam, of course I’ll marry you!

It hurt to think about. It hurt _so much_ because Adam never stopped him from doing what he wanted. He never stopped him from breaking every Garrison record, or from bringing in this spit fire of a child he picked up from juvi. He never stopped him from going into space. He didn’t even stop him from going to Kerberos. You could only bring up old conversations so many times before they stopped working. 

Should have. He _should have_ this, he _should have_ that.

But he didn’t.

He should have tried harder to keep Takashi from going. He should have fought him harder on it. He should have talked to Commander Holt and asked him personally to not take Takashi with him. He didn’t want to go behind his fiancé’s back and put in a formal letter of complaint, but maybe he should have.

But he didn’t.

He finished off one bottle and put out a cigarette in the glass he was using for a tray and realized now that this all truly was his fault. The crash (no one had confirmed that it was a crash, but there was no other way for a ship to just go missing on a moon that small) was his fault too. Takashi never made errors, but that was all before Adam tried to crush his dreams. What if the crash was because Adam _wasn’t_ up there? What if Takashi did have a seizure in the cockpit, or his hands locked up and he couldn’t move them and Adam wasn’t there to help him. What if it was something worse. What if Takashi just woke up one morning, remembered Adam hated his guts (he didn’t; he never could) and wasn’t thinking straight and just...drove everyone off a cliff...or something...

God, this was his fault and he knew it.

Adam reached for the top of the counter to pull himself up, and felt nothing but disgust. First off because there was no way in hell he was ever going to finish off those other two bottles or the remaining pack of cigarettes, and second because what had he done? He made it as far as the couch before his legs couldn’t stop wobbling and he fell onto the cushions, and then he didn’t want to get up. 

Takashi was fucking dead out in the middle of space, and it was all Adam’s fault. He could have done more and he didn’t. 

And now he just wanted to pass out drunk on his couch. Alone. Because what else could he do?

**Author's Note:**

> wtf you actually read this?????? I cant believe it. I said sue my i was serious. 
> 
> I really dont know what happened here, but i read a loooooot of posts about how guilty adam must feel and also i needed some hard angst over them bc how can you tell your fiancé that and then have him not come back there guilt in there and i will exploit it. 
> 
> it was really weird writing Takashi instead of Shiro, but ADAM CALLS HIM TAKASHI how could i not,,,,,,
> 
> This was so unbeta’d i didnt even give it a once over sorry yall yikes


End file.
